#and OCs who have been so lovingly outlined between myself and derrygirlstrash

[areseebee]

I know a lot of it might be a spoiler but I’m very curious can you share something about James and Erin’s partners since you’ve mentioned some of them?

as you've surmised, lot of it is spoiler material so i won’t get too in depth, but i’ll share some about the partners i’ve already mentioned in someday and in this one little ficlet!

so far i’ve mentioned two partners for james (faye and miles) and one partner for erin (liam). 

-faye is james’s first gf after the end of smoke break. he’s not looking to meet anyone, his head’s still pretty wrapped up in what went down in smoke break, but they are in the same class together and after being assigned to work together on a project, they start to spend time together. and faye is cool. faye is like, really cool. she drums. she’s from northwest england (think blackpool area) and is a fashion student – wants to be a costume designer – and james is in the film program. they’re both in comms/media studies which is why their paths cross. faye comes around at the right time for james – she’s validating and chill and unthreatened which makes it easy for him to open up about where his head’s at and what went down to put his head there. by the time christmas comes around, they’re basically together. they date through university, at which time it mostly just makes the most sense for their lives to break up – they’ll both be immersed in their careers and living very far away from each other the whole time. they remain lifelong friends, which works out great – james gets to be happy for two of his friends when clare and faye start dating, a few years on. i won’t get in to it too much here, but erin does not like faye, which is why she is sort of baffled when everyone else loves her. faye is english, too, erin will remind michelle. “yeah, but she’s not the prick kind of english, so.”

-miles: is james’s hot australian ex-bf. they date for around a year and meet on a shoot. miles sort of looks like patrick swayze – one of james’s favorite films is ghost and he figured out sometime in young adulthood that it’s not only because it’s a classic film, but he’s sort of into both demi moore and patrick swayze – which kind of makes for an instant crush. miles is delighted by james’s irish childhood friends – they’re hilarious and really commit to their bits. specifically michelle and erin’s bit about finding miles swoon-worthy (spoiler: it’s not really a bit). no one’s really sure how james pulled miles? that will forever remain a mystery, but they sure are happy to have miles around when they can.

it’s james’s thing to remain friends with his exes at this point. part of it is industry networking, but most of it is because he just really loves the people that become important parts of his life. he travels a lot, working in documentary film, and these relationships (friendship and otherwise) are grounding. he doesn’t let go of them easily even if he is moving on romantically. and it serves him extra well when he needs a couch to crash on.

-liam: that brings us to liam, erin’s ex and mostly her only real ex bf. erin also meets liam shortly after the events of smoke break. they’re in a creative writing class together at uni – liam is a poet. liam is just, simply put, nice. he’s an incredibly talented writer, he’s irish, he’s from belfast, he’s cute, he’s thoughtful. it’s everything that erin would have wanted in a partner, really. it all makes sense on paper. liam sort of pursues erin at first, and she appreciates the attention, but she’s sort of counting down until christmas when she knows she’s going to see her friends again (all of them) in derry and doesn’t take liam seriously. she goes back to belfast earlier than she had originally intended – things didn’t go how she hoped they would over christmas – and kisses liam at midnight on NYE. it’s like a story, all of this. and she falls pretty hard once she lets herself get all in. but she never quite feels right, the longer they’re together. the first time liam brings up marriage, about two years in, erin wants to change the subject. she likes the idea of it, but when she really starts to think about logistics…well, she’d just rather not think about it. they date for four years – all through uni and then a year beyond. they break up shortly after erin’s first big break: she writes a play that gets staged, professionally. there was just something about seeing a story inspired by her life play out night after night that made her reconsider her priorities. long story short: liam and erin do not remain friends.